adam_dorr t1_j0gonsl wrote
Howdy, Adam Dorr, Director of Research at RethinkX here. My team did some key work in 2019 that laid out the disruptive potential of these new food technologies. We coined the term precision fermentation in that original report, which is become the industry term of art.
We also analyzed the climate change implications of these new food technologies in combination with the energy and transportation disruptions.
If anyone is interested in these new technologies, I just published a new book that discusses the potential of precision fermentation, cellular agriculture, and the other disruptive clean technologies to help us solve our greatest environmental problems. The book is titled Brighter: Optimism, Progress, and the Future of Environmentalism, and it was inspired in no small part by the enormous amount of pessimism and doom-and-gloom I've seen here on Reddit and elsewhere online, especially among young people. It's absolutely heartbreaking that people think our future is bleak, when in fact there has never been greater cause for data-driven optimism. I wanted to show everyone how our work at RethinkX points to a future that is far, FAR brighter than many imagine.
If you need cheering up for the holidays, check it out: shameless plug.
I'll be around for a bit this morning and will keep an eye on this post, if anyone has any questions!
beermaker t1_j0gtb4e wrote
Since learning about what voracious critters Yeast are in the brewing/wine industry, I've been amazed at what potential still lies ahead for these little chemical factories... from dairy fats and proteins, to terpenes and THC.
ATribeOfAfricans t1_j0hjgjx wrote
I'm interested in reading your book but one thing I notice is that it's not that people believe we do not have the capability for a brighter future, from a technical standpoint, I think it's doubt in our ability to align and solve them from a social/cultural standpoint.
adam_dorr t1_j0hsmcs wrote
It's a great point, and a concern I share. The thing that makes me so optimistic is that prosperity and abundance really change the game. We've seen this historically again and again. When something is scarce or expensive, that's when people argue, debate, fight, go to war. When it's sufficiently cheap and abundant and free of terrible side-effects, then people stop fighting over it.
So, when clean energy and clean food and automation converge to render themselves and virtually everything else superabundant, that opens up a huge new opportunity to stop fighting and start cooperating.
Prosperity really is a fundamental enabling condition of cooperation - and it's of course self-reinforcing. There is a crucial corollary here too, which is that if we voluntarily dive into scarcity by downsizing and degrowing economically in the name of sustainability, we will shoot ourselves in the foot, because scarcity (aka poverty, let's not kid ourselves) will foment conflict of every kind. Concerns about the environment and sustainability are some of the first things to go out the window amidst poverty and social conflict.
ATribeOfAfricans t1_j0j9kmg wrote
Thanks for responding and you speak the truth. I definitely agree about scarcity, or perceived scarcity, being a huge driver for conflict. So many people rely on that fear to acquire and hang onto power by pitting different groups against eachother.
A deep rooted fear I have is that our brains are simply not equipped to deal with a world of abundance and conflict will propagate regardless
iikra t1_j0m4ogj wrote
First, hats off to your several analysis of future disruptive industries, really interesting :)
The Rethink X report on Precision Fermentation is now more than 3 years old.
I would like to know if the current development/cost of production is on track with the 2019 forecast. I have the feeling it has been a bit over-optimistic.
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When do you think lab grown meat will start to be competitive with traditional meat? Milk?
adam_dorr t1_j0mnsbm wrote
Thanks for your interest in our work!
It's hard to separate the signal from the noise during the pandemic period, but in broad terms the cost improvements are right on track with what we expected - mainly because of the absolutely massive scaling that is currently going on globally in this new industry. We are hoping to publish an update to our earlier analysis next year, but my personal expectation is that the original projections in the 2019 report will prove to be quite accurate as we approach 2030.
As for when the new products approach parity, it depends on the exact product in particular geographic regions/markets, but my general expectation is that by the mid-2020s there will be many markets where precision fermentation and cellular agriculture products are being produced the same or lower cost than traditional animal products. Keep in mind that cost (for producers) is not the same as the price that end-consumers pay.
Neil_Live-strong t1_j0kx8c5 wrote
Pessimism and optimism are emotions, not a philosophy. And when I look at what is being proposed here and based off of my life experience and how these types of operations have gone before, I am pessimistic. My first question is, what do you think the goal is here in relation to climate change?
And now to the substance. What some animals are able to do by converting grass and vegetation into vitamin rich meat is nothing short of amazing. What some humans do by taking part in a relationship that predates our species is nothing short of spiritual. This is fake. It’s not “milk” or “meat” or whatever you are trying to pretend it is. It’s something else trying to mimic those things. And that is devastating to the human spirit, as are mass production farms and feed lots. But you can’t help the human spirit by killing it in another way. So all of this farmland gets converted into nature, then what, a pass is needed to access it? All this farmland is taken away with “sticks”, then what? Families that have farmed for generations are told to just find something else to do under threat of fines. That’s not compassionate at all and sets the foundation for this project on a sinkhole. The claim is this is to help humanity and we have to do that by really screwing over some humans. Lies are the nails that build a house of failure.
Like I said pessimism is an emotion, and it’s disingenuous to ignore pessimistic emotions about the future and not address some of the problems related to this technology.
thisimpetus t1_j0lmikn wrote
For someone who entered this conversation with a reasonable point, that pessimism is not philosophy, it's pretty incredible how rapidly this went entirely off the rails into the land of utter, utter nonsense.
And to be clear, I've been a devout Buddhist for twenty years, I take no issue with spirituality; I take enormous issue with nonsense.
We don't want or care about "milk", we want a particular flavour, texture and nutrient profile with a feasible ecological footprint. Your projecting emotion and ideology into protein synthesis is ridiculous behaviour that has no bearing in reality whatsoever.
Weed_Exterminator t1_j19rcnj wrote
To think you could simply impose your will on people with generations of work invested, without push-back, is what I would consider “utter nonsense”.
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